The Fantastic Spiderman
by DarkHawke
Summary: A 're-imagining' of Spider-man, He's gone Fantasy


A blue lamp hummed.  
The lamp was actually a tiny glass case, containing bonded fairy. The fairy was bonded to the lamp for sixty-six and a half years, at which time it would be paid in magic, and then allowed to leave. This was what the humans laughably referred to as 'the contract', for it was a contract that the fairy had no choice in. Fae may be immortal, but they live their lives far quicker than their human counterparts, and by consequence time travels slower for them. No fae ever died in a lamp, but all became very, very bored.  
This particular lamp stood in a cobbled street in the city or Recnamorken. Recnamorken was a massive industrial complex, with tall mage-towers that literally scraped the skies, and riverfront factories that seemed to produce nothing but black, thick, smog.  
The fae within this lamp went by the name of Iltheia. She wasn't sure how long she had been in her tiny glass prison, for she was only young, but she knew it was autumn.   
Autumn. She'd be weaving spells of protection, flitting between fallen leaves back in her forests; perhaps she'd even have a mate.  
She sighed, and tucked her head between her knees. She found it better not to think about what she would be doing had she not been caught.  
She knew from what she had heard on the streets below her that the city had been besieged. The besieging army had left when their food to run short, but they prevented food from entering the city, and burnt all of the farmsteads that normally supplied those within. Consequently, the cost of food had gone up exponentially.  
She sighed again. It wouldn't be so bad if she could simply go to sleep, to try and sleep off the boredom, but then she wouldn't be able to do this glow spell that was, presently, her sole function in life. She couldn't stop – spells were weaved into her prison to ensure that should she not cast glow during the hours of darkness, or should she attempt to cast any other spell, she would suffer excruciating pain through harm spells.  
She looked down out of her blue prison. A group of thugs had congregated a short distance below. At least there was one benefit of being in this lamp: the thugs dared not try to hurt her, for the harms spells could be projected outwards as well as inward, and these lamps were tapped in to a citywide grid of ley lines, meaning they could kill a rhinoceros stone dead at a hundred yards.  
In any case, the attention of the thugs seemed to be directed elsewhere. Looking down the street she saw their focus: a woman clad in the green rags of a laundrette in one of the mages' towers. She wouldn't have much, but it would be at least enough to buy a decent meal.  
Two more thugs stepped out of the shadows behind her, wielding clubs and broken bottles, while a particularly huge thug in front of her pulled a knife. The woman pulled back in despair, and then pulled out a purse. The fairy sighed once more. These humans were so violent, preying on each other in times of need rather than dealing with the real problem.  
But then something odd happened.  
A thread, about as thick as the Iltheia's head, struck the blade of the knife. It looked almost like twisted strands of spider silk. Then, the knife was jerked out of the thug's hand, and pulled into an alleyway leading off the main street. Mugger and mugged both looked equally fearfully into the alleyway, wondering what may be shuffling in the darkness.  
Then the knife came back at high speed and handle first, striking the big thug on the nose. He staggered back a few steps, and collapsed in the middle of the street, a trickle of blood from his broken nose.  
Most of the thugs in front of the woman bolted, but the two behind were slow to act.  
Then, a web line struck the metal housing above Iltheia's glass prison, and a black shape swung on it from the shadows. It spun around the lamp, Iltheia desperately trying to follow it, and finally stopped on the side that faced the street.  
Itheia pushed her nose against the glass and tried to get a good look, lapsing in concentration for a second. The lamp dimmed slightly, and she had to shut her eyes for a second to boost the spell, but when she opened her eyes again they widened with incredulity.  
What she saw was a man, swathed in black cloth, with a bronze breastplate that had a spider motif on it. On his wrists he wore what appeared at first glance to be large bronze bracers. But in fact they were complex contraptions, consisting of cogs and with a pale blue light emanating from the underside.  
But more incredible than the costume the he wore was the fact that this man was somehow sticking to the lamp post, not gripping, but merely touching with his feet and the fingertips with one hand. He leant outwards, and scanned with his eyes across the street. The two thugs behind the woman had had less of a start than the others, and were only a short distance down the street when the man touched the centre of his palm with the middle finger and ring finger of his left hand. A web line arched to the opposite side of the street, attached to the eave of a house, and he swung. Mid way through the swing, another web line arched out another house on the opposite side, and he arched through the air.  
Fascinated by these proceedings, Itheia leapt to the side of her prison that faced the street. Part of the housing obscured her vision, but she managed to see around.  
The man in black leapt towards a nearby flagpole that jutted out into the street, and fired two of his web lines downward, grabbing the man by each shoulder. Leaping over the flagpole, he dropped to the ground, pulling the thug up ward. His head had a painful meeting with the flagpole, and then a far more painful meeting with the ground when the man released the web lines.  
He then turned his attention to the other thug, who had stopped momentarily to see his friends' demise. He bolted once again, but he was nowhere near fast enough to outrun the webslinger. The man in black dropped behind the thug, and planted a web line into the small of his back. Pulling him backwards, he tripped the thug up. He then stood and fired some webbing that opened out, covering the thugs hands and mouth, and attaching him to the ground.  
"I'd suggest you breathe through your nose," he said, "because those webs taste horrible."  
He got back to the woman, who stood in stunned amazement.  
"Wh-who are you?"  
"Just think of me as your friendly neighbourhood Spider-man."  
"Th-thankyou… Spiderman…" She said, as she turned away.  
"Umm… I accept donation… please?" but she was gone. Spider-man sighed. "Well she could've at least remembered the hyphen" he said, as he swung off into the night.  
_A… Hero?_ Itheia thought to herself as she stood staring after the man in black.  
Many, many miles away, atop a huge mage tower, a man stood in red robes over a crystal ball. From here he could see what every fae across the city saw, but he was concentrating on the observations of just one fae. He was worried one of his experiments would get out sooner or later, but not like _this_.


End file.
